Residential Road Speed Demons: Council Unconcerned
(Image: Frances Ward)"/>
Cars have been speeding up to 80mph on Reading residential road Redhatch Drive but the council "do not see a speed related concern" and "will not be investigating any further".
A Freedom of Information request to Wokingham Borough Council revealed that over a two-week period from May 30 to June 12, an alarming 28 per cent of vehicles travelling along Redhatch Drive in Reading's Earley neighbourhood exceeded the 30 mile per hour speed limit.
On at least one occasion within this timeframe, a vehicle clocked 80 mph – exceeding the residential street's speed restriction by over two and a half times.
On two separate occasions, vehicles were clocked exceeding 70 mph, and in numerous other instances, they were going faster than 60 mph.
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As the FOI data only shows the exact speed for the highest recorded vehicle travelling in either direction for each day, it is impossible to analyse the most common speed on the road.
However, during the fortnight in question, speed cameras caught 8,539 vehicles exceeding the limit from a total of 30,056 vehicles that drove past. This equates to 28%, or almost a third, of all traffic breaking the speed limit.
Redhatch Drive resident Frances sent the FOI data to Wokingham Borough Council, who are responsible for the area.
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Frances raised concerns to the council about the number of cars speeding and the high speeds they were travelling at, noting that children walk along the road every day to get to school.
In an email seen by the Chronicle, a Wokingham Council officer told Frances that the council and Thames Valley Police were aware of the speeding on Redhatch Drive but "do not see a speed related concern" and would "not be investigating any further".
The officer explained that they relied on "mean speed" - the average across all vehicles - to determine if there was a speeding issue.
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The council officer did not explain how high the average speed would have to be for them to consider the speeding an issue, nor did they share what the average speed for Redhatch Drive is.
The officer said they "fully understand the concern of some vehicles travelling at higher speeds on this road" but noted it was impossible to tell if some of the speeding incidents were due to emergency service vehicles.
At any rate, the council officer said the road's average speed combined with zero "injury related accidents" in the past five years meant it did "not warrant prioritised police enforcement or engineering solutions at this time".
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The email continued: "Whilst I appreciate this is not the outcome desired, we must carefully prioritise our budgets in line with sites that show clusters of accidents and concern that need our attention.
"Redhatch Drive does not meet this criterion at present."
The council officer's email to Frances concluded that the council does "take road safety seriously".
Frances told the Chronicle she is concerned about the speeding because she has two young children: "What is sad is effectively until someone is potentially injured nothing is going to be done."
Wokingham Borough Council have been approached for comment.